Baldwin leads Hovde by 12 points in Wisconsin Senate race: Poll

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) holds a double-digit lead over likely GOP challenger Eric Hovde in a new poll of the battleground state Senate race.

The survey, released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University, shows Baldwin bringing in 54 percent support among surveyed Wisconsin voters to Hovde’s 42 percent. While each candidate takes nearly all of their own parties’ votes, independents also backed Baldwin by a 12-point margin.

The poll results are a good sign for Democrats, who are banking on Baldwin and other vulnerable Democrats to keep a razor-thin Senate majority. 

The numbers come as Hovde’s campaign has been dogged by scandal, with Democrats attacking the business leader for spending much of his adult life out of state and voting absentee from California as recently as this year.

Name recognition could also be a factor for Hovde, with half of poll respondents saying they don’t know enough about him to have an opinion. Meanwhile, 49 percent said they have a favorable opinion of Baldwin.

The 12-point margin over Hovde is an improvement from prior polls in the race for the incumbent senator. In March, she held just a 3-point lead, according to an Emerson College/The Hill poll.

Money is tight between the pair, with both fundraising well in the first quarter of this year. Both candidates raised nearly $10 million between their campaigns and principal committees, though Hovde put in $8 million of his own money for the cause. 

The businessman has suggested he could put as much as $20 million of his own funds into his campaign, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

Wisconsin will be one of the most significant battlegrounds of 2024, with former President Trump and President Biden trying to court the Badger State’s voters. The state voted for Trump in 2016 before flipping to Biden in 2020. 

Baldwin is seeking her third term after being comfortably elected to her seat in 2012 and 2018.

Hovde is facing some opposition in the GOP primary for the nomination but has received establishment backing, including from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. 

The Quinnipiac University poll surveyed about 1,500 registered voters last week, with a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.